


What He Knows

by iolanthe_rosa



Category: Lord of the Rings RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-04-16
Updated: 2003-04-16
Packaged: 2017-11-19 11:07:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/572598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iolanthe_rosa/pseuds/iolanthe_rosa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dom writes what he knows, sense by sense.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What He Knows

Dom lifted the lid of the laptop and stared at the screen. The file titled "The Script" stared back at him. Elijah was out of the house and the time had come to work on it; no more procrastinating. But months of puzzling over plot twists and strange locations, Mafia-speak and scuba minutiae were taking their toll on the creative process. Dom's long fingers twitched nervously over the mouse. Instead of double-clicking to open the file, he found himself selecting "New" from the pull-down menu. A blank page appeared.  
  
Dom felt a sense of relief combined with anticipation. There was nothing quite like a blank page. Maybe the script would flow better if he warmed up with something else first, he rationalized. The script was about so many things with which Dom was unfamiliar. What was it writing instructors always said? Write what you know.  
  
Dom thought about what he knew. He knew the pain of being the shortest, funniest-looking boy in school. He knew the satisfaction of feeling his fist crunch against the nose of the bully who taunted him for it. He knew gray Manchester days and boozy football victory nights. He knew the magic of disappearing into a character, and the pride that came from doing work that he was good at. He knew the thrill of being inside a wave, watching his soul turn to mist around him. He knew about leaving the people he loved behind so he could keep the person he loved in front. He knew love. He knew Elijah.  
  
ELIJAH  
  
he typed at the top of the page, all capital letters. Such a beautiful name, so perfectly suited to the man he loved. Delicate and strong at the same time. Mysterious.  
  
He smiled to himself. It was a good sex name. With his teeth firmly latched to the tip of Elijah's ear, Dom could whisper, "Liiiiijahhh," and they would both shiver as he swept his tongue from tip to lobe. Or when he lay on top of him, binding them together with his cock, he could chant "Lijah" over and over until the syllables turned to moans and they both came with a gasp and a sigh. It was yet another reason he knew he could never be with anyone else. Because sex would just not be the same with someone named Dave.  
  
Dom struggled to bring himself back to the work at hand. Write what you know. He knew Elijah, his taste, his touch. Yes, with each one of his senses he knew him.  
  
Elijah smells like  
  
he typed, then stopped, frowning. The fact was, most of the time Elijah smelled like cigarette smoke. Sometimes cloves, which weren't so bad, but sometimes he smelled like whatever rotgut piece of shit cigarette he could get his trembling addict's hands on. Dom felt the familiar needle of worry in his gut when he thought about Elijah slowly poisoning his body with nicotine and a thousand disgusting carcinogens. But he had long since stopped begging him to quit.  
  
Because Elijah needed those smokes. They gave him comfort. Elijah had stresses in his life that Dom could not really understand. The need to please, to be the good boy, to be the peacemaker. If Elijah had found a way to relieve those stresses and, with the same act, rebel against them, who was he to stop him?  
  
Besides, Dom took grim satisfaction in the knowledge that Elijah smoked more when he was away. If Dom's very presence could loosen the knot of Elijah's addiction, then he had faith that over time, as their love inevitably deepened and grew, Elijah would find it within himself to untangle the knot the rest of the way. And that knowledge sweetened the acrid scent of Elijah's smoking considerably.  
  
Elijah smells like hope,  
  
he typed.  
  
Dom could not think about scent without immediately turning to taste. Dom's mouth watered in a Pavlovian fashion as he began to ponder this sense.  
  
On one level, Elijah tasted pretty much like anyone else. A kiss in the evening was likely to taste of beer and cigarettes. A morning kiss was usually fresh and minty. His sweat was salty, nothing more; didn't matter whether Dom licked it off his back, his neck, or from between his thighs: salt is salt. Even his cum had the usual clean bitterness to it. Nothing new.  
  
And yet he could kiss a hundred men with his eyes closed and still know Elijah by taste alone.  
  
He recalled the hot summer day when Elijah had gone to the beach and Dom, in an unusual moment of self-discipline, had decided to stay home to work on the script. A whisper of guilt drifted down Dom's spine as he remembered that he should be working on the script right now, but he was too far lost in his pleasurable thoughts to turn back.  
  
That day, Elijah returned home late in the afternoon. His hair had been stiffened by the salt wind into a comic wildness. His face was smudged with the SPF 258 or whatever it was his ridiculously fair skin required. Dom was seated at the desk working. Elijah had leaned in and kissed him full on the lips and, between the salt and the sunscreen and Elijah's palpable joy after an afternoon in the surf, it was like kissing the sun itself. Because underneath the cloves and the beer and the breath mints, that was what Elijah really tasted like: like the sun and the moon and the breathless moment before the lightning strikes.  
  
Elijah tastes like life,  
  
Dom typed below the first line.  
  
Now he was getting into the spirit of this exercise! Which sense to tackle next: sight, sound, or touch? He thought about it for a moment. Gotta go with sight.  
  
What was it like to look at Elijah? One of the ironies of a long-term relationship is that, after a while, one stops actually seeing one's lover. Somehow, over time, Elijah had become more of a presence in Dom's life than a physical fact. He did not need to see him: he could sense if he was in the same room, sleeping peacefully next to him, or drinking coffee in the kitchen. He simply knew he was there by the comforting feeling of completeness in his heart whenever they were together. Most days Dom couldn't tell you what color shirt Elijah was wearing.  
  
Sometimes, unexpectedly, he *did* see him, as if he had never seen him before, and then Elijah's pure beauty would strike him with the force of a wave pounding the sand.  
  
Dom was accident-prone. Elijah always teased Dom about his "traveling band-aid," because on any day of the week, he might be sporting one on his finger or his leg or his foot, or all of the above. One day, Dom was baking in the kitchenette of the little guest house. He was making Elijah's favorite: peanut butter cookies with Hershey's kisses on top (Dom personally felt peanut butter was a bizarre American abomination, and Hershey's a pale substitute for Cadbury's, but anything for Elijah, right?)  
  
Elijah was watching the proceedings with interest from the sofa, admiring Dom's lean and compact body as he moved efficiently around the kitchen, when suddenly Dom cried out in pain and the cookie sheet crashed to the floor. Elijah was up and out of the sofa in a heartbeat. Dom was sitting on the kitchen floor looking at his right arm as if it belonged to someone else. On his forearm, a large red burn was already beginning to blister.  
  
"Jesus, Dom! What the fuck?!" Elijah cried.  
  
Elijah was one of those people you wanted around when making major life decisions, like which house to buy, but he was useless in a minor emergency. And for some reason, it was just then, sitting on the floor in pain with Elijah swearing at him, that Dom had one of those moments where he felt like he was seeing him for the first time.  
  
Elijah's face was screwed up in panic and concern, his eyes, almost hidden behind black-framed glasses, were blue like the base of a candle flame. In the heightened reality of the moment, Dom noticed a bit of spit in the corner of Elijah's mouth, slight chapping on his lower lip, and a pale pink blemish emerging on his chin. And even though Dom had had this thought many times before, he had never before believed it with such emphatic certainty: Elijah Wood was the most beautiful human being he had ever seen.  
  
Elijah looks like love.  
  
As he typed, Dom glanced at the pale brown mark that remained on his forearm. And that was the last damn batch of peanut butter cookies he ever made, he noted to himself with satisfaction.  
  
Dom felt a pang as he realized that he was reaching the end of the senses available to him. Just sound and touch were left. He was saving touch for last.  
  
Sound was not very promising. He had grown to love Elijah's voice, its softness and its flat, clipped American tones, but it was not one of the world's great voices. Dom had long ago filed that strange falsetto singing thing he did into the same folder as Elijah's giggle- those traits he had early on decided to love, otherwise he would have had to kill him. It suddenly dawned on him that he really had come to love that giggle. And, of course, the range of moans, whimpers, and grunts he could elicit from Elijah with the right flick of finger or tongue were always a source of pride to him.  
  
But there was one sound he was addicted to:  
  
"Dom!" chirped over a tinny, low-quality cell-phone.  
  
Dom was at the supermarket and couldn't decide between whole wheat or white. He picked up the cell phone. "Hey, Lij, I-"  
  
"Dom!" Elijah interrupted, then waited for him to continue with his question.  
  
Elijah was in New York. Dom was in L.A. It was midnight. Elijah had been to a bad movie and needed to purge himself of the experience by telling Dom about it. "Dom!" he cried into the phone, as if he had not talked to him two hours ago, waiting in line for the same movie.  
  
"Dom!" in the car.  
  
"Dom!" at the airport.  
  
"Dom!" on the set.  
  
It had become like breathing for them. They were apart, they had an experience, a question, a thought, a joke. Pick up the cell and make the call. And every single time, thousands and thousands of phone calls later, it was still, "Dom!" Elijah knew Dom would always answer, and Dom knew Elijah would always be glad he did.  
  
Elijah sounds like faith,  
  
Dom added to the list. He sighed. Maybe Elijah would call soon; he had already been gone at least 30 minutes. Oh well, never mind. It was time to think about touch.  
  
He tried to remember the first time he had ever touched Elijah. He supposed it would have been when they shook hands that first day in New Zealand. But Dom had no memory of their hands touching, because at the time he was having the requisite "Oh my god Å| his eyes!" moment that everyone had when first meeting Elijah.  
  
Within hours of coalescing as The Hobbits, touch became their shorthand: back pats, hugs, arm punches, shoulder squeezes, the usual array of friendly but meaningless contact between actors. It was not until they became romantically involved that Dom could really remember any details about touching Elijah.  
  
And that was when he discovered to his delight that Elijah was all about touch. He was like the world's most hedonistic cat, pressing against Dom's hand when he rested it on the back of his neck, arching into Dom's fingertips as they circled his nipples, shifting his hips so Dom could press the exact right spot between his legs. Elijah loved to be touched and Dom was more than happy to oblige.  
  
Dom recalled the night a few months ago when he lay on the sofa letting homesick thoughts sift through his mind. He would never admit it to Elijah, but he was homesick pretty much all the time. Oh, there were some things he liked about L.A: baking in the sun by the pool until his skin felt like flash paper about to ignite, being able to send out for Thai food at 2:00 a.m. But those weren't really the things that made a place home.  
  
And he missed home, wherever that was. He wasn't even sure anymore if home was New Zealand or London or New York or Manchester. But he knew it wasn't L.A. As he entertained these dull thoughts, he noticed Elijah observing him intently from the other end of the sofa.  
  
"Come on," Elijah said, getting up and taking Dom's hand.  
  
Dom obediently followed Elijah into the bedroom where Elijah quietly and without ceremony took his clothes off.  
  
"Touch me," he said.  
  
Dom considered this for a moment. He was feeling melancholy; he could not be playful as he ordinarily would have been under these circumstances. But Elijah was serious too. He was standing very still, his eyes silver in the dim bedroom light.  
  
Dom reached up and slowly ran his fingertips along Elijah's jaw. It made him smile to feel the stubble there. Elijah was so young when they first got together. Dom used to tease him about his once-a-month shaving regimen. Now they shared a razor in the morning. He had never thought of Elijah as a boy, but it could not be denied that every day he was becoming more and more a man. The thought made his cock jump.  
  
Ignoring his increasing desire, Dom ran his thumb along Elijah's full lower lip. There was a period early on when that lip had obsessed him. He had fantasized about kissing it, sucking it, biting it. Now, Dom thought to himself with a sort of wonder, he could have it whenever he wanted. As his thumb traveled the lip's soft length, Elijah opened his mouth, took Dom's thumb in, and swirled the tip of it with his tongue. Dom held his breath and ran his fingertips through Elijah's mouth, until each had been blessed by Elijah's tongue.  
  
Dom moved his now-damp fingers to Elijah's nipples. Elijah's breath quickened as Dom gently teased them to attention. Then Dom pressed his palms flat against Elijah's chest. He could feel hard muscles under the soft skin, another recent development. He paused to feel Elijah's chest rising and falling beneath his hands, his heart beating beneath the pale skin.  
  
"Be here now," Dom found himself thinking. "This is what it is to be alive."  
  
Elijah backed away from Dom's hands and moved to their always-unmade bed. He lay on his back, spread-eagled. His naked body seemed to glow faintly on the rumpled sheets.  
  
"Touch me," he repeated.  
  
Dom removed his clothes. He wanted to touch as much of Elijah's body at one time as he could. He carefully stretched himself on top of Elijah, matching chest to chest, hip to hip, knee to knee. He extended his arms wide to mirror Elijah's outstretched arms, and clasped their hands together. He lowered his head until his forehead rested against Elijah's. Their mouths were so close, it felt like they were breathing for each other. Dom could feel Elijah's cock against his stomach, the heat and hardness matching his own. They began rocking, careful to maintain their balance, slow hip thrusts that created delicious sensation.  
  
Elijah wrapped his legs around Dom's waist and clasped his long neck with his hands. Dom lowered his mouth to Elijah's ear and started uttering his favorite chant, "Lijah, Lijah, Lijah," as they gently rocked. He lost all sense of time and place as they soared together on the bed, his awareness extending only to the feeling of Elijah's silky skin against his, the warm puffs of Elijah's breath in his ear, and the irresistible heat rising in his own body.  
  
Dom reached between them and wrapped his fingers around their cocks. There was nothing like the feeling of Elijah's cock in his hand, its weight, its warmth, the soft skin gliding over the firm contours beneath. Elijah cried out with the increased contact and began rapidly bucking into Dom's hand. Dom tightened his grip and buried his face into Elijah's neck. The twin sensations of Elijah wrapped around him and the heat mounting within him made him feel as if he were being compressed into a ball of pure pleasure A few more thrusts and Dom came with a cry. Elijah followed soon after, his helpless moans building until his shout of release sent a second wave of bliss through Dom's body.  
  
For a moment Dom could not remember where he was. He was drifting through space and time, tangled up with Elijah, just the two of them, alone on their own planet in its own galaxy, part of a benign universe created just for them.  
  
That was what it was to touch Elijah.  
  
Elijah feels like home.  
  
he completed his poem. Dom leaned back from the computer and closed his eyes, releasing the breath slowly from his lungs. He was beginning to miss the twitchy little bastard. He forced himself back to reality and read the results of his morning's efforts:  
  
ELIJAH  
  
Elijah smells like hope,  
Elijah tastes like life,  
Elijah looks like love,  
Elijah sounds like faith,  
Elijah feels like home.  
  
It wasn't Shakespeare, but it pleased him. No way could he write about scuba diving Mafiosos now. Besides, Elijah was home.  
  
"Hi, baby," Dom said, lowering the laptop lid, but not turning around.  
  
"How did you know I was here?" Elijah asked, surprised; his lips had almost reached the back of Dom's neck for what he had hoped would be an unexpected kiss.  
  
"Don't know. Guess I've got a sixth sense when it comes to you," Dom smiled.


End file.
